- Hong Kong Grid Initiative
- Asia-Pacific Grid (ApGrid) Project
- G-JavaMPI communication library
- HKU Interactive Learning Grid
Systems research projects
- JESSICA: Java-Enabled Single-System-Image Computing Architecture - a distributed Java virtual machine with thread migration
- Parallel and distributed web servers: Cyclone and p-Jigsaw
- SPARKLE: A component-based software architecture for pervasive computing
- The JUMP software distributed-shared memory system
- The ClusterProbe cluster monitoring system
- M-JavaMPI: A new Java-MPI interface with process migration capability
- Embedded Linux Router Switch
The following research projects are mainly supported by the Gideon Cluster (http://www.srg.csis.hku.hk/gideon/) built by the CSIS Department, together with the HPC platforms administered by the Computer Centre at HKU. For details about these projects, please visit �http://grid.csis.hku.hk/modules.php?op=modload&name=ldf&file=index&htm=ongoing.html�.
Grid computing projects
Hong Kong Grid Initiative
The Hong Kong Grid Initiative (HKGrid) aims at (1) building a joint-university grid test bed in HK, (2) promoting grid computing and its benefits, and (3) facilitating the development of grid middleware/applications for the local industry and institutions. The Initiative currently consists of departments in six local universities, which includes the Computer Centre and the CSIS Department at HKU.
Asia-Pacific Grid (ApGrid) ProjectCSIS�s Gideon cluster has become one of the grid points in the Asia Pacific Grid (ApGrid). In March 2003, Dr. Yoshio Tanaka of AIST conducted a demonstration by using the ApGrid testbed in the Global Grid Forum 7 (GGF7) held in Tokyo. The cluster is connected to the ApGrid backbone via a 10Mbps Asia Pacific Area Network (APAN) link.
G-JavaMPI communication libraryG-JavaMPI is a grid-enabled implementation of the Java language bindings of the MPI v1.1 standard. Through services from the Globus Toolkit (e.g., job startup, security, etc.), it extends the parallel computing capability of Java on the grid with the support of a grid-enabled message passing interface (MPICH-G2) for efficient communication among distributed Java processes. It allows people to run MPI applications written in Java language accross the grid environment including multiple machines with different architectures, residing in distributed sites, and belonging to multiple organizations. A special feature of G-JavaMPI is the support of transparent Java process migration. This mechanism provides the strong support for kinds of advanced facilities, especially load balancing, fault tolerance (continuous computation), dynamic resource co-allocation, etc.
HKU Interactive Learning GridThe HKU Interactive Learning Grid Project aims to develop an application for demonstrating the power of grid within the campus. Nowadays, students taking courses in our department are overburdened by the need to install suitable operating systems and software in order to finish their assignments. On top of this, different courses have different requirements to the platforms and software, making it a burden for the students in doing the assignments. In view of this, HKU Interactive Learning Grid makes use of grid resources to provide suitable environments for the students to complete their assignments. Students can, therefore, focus on the correctness of their work instead of making every effort to meet the requirements of the courses. Apart from helping the students, the grid also helps the tutors who marked the assignments. The tutors do not need to worry about having a number of different platforms in order to mark the assignments. They can also make use of the system to help them simplify their work.
Systems research projects
- JESSICA: Java-Enabled Single-System-Image Computing Architecture - a distributed Java virtual machine with thread migration
- Parallel and distributed web servers: Cyclone and p-Jigsaw
- SPARKLE: A component-based software architecture for pervasive computing
- The JUMP software distributed-shared memory system
- The ClusterProbe cluster monitoring system
- M-JavaMPI: A new Java-MPI interface with process migration capability
- Embedded Linux Router Switch
- Our projects represent some of the latest R&D efforts in parallel and distributed computing, and original contributions to the research community as a whole. More than 30 technical papers have been published in international journals and conference proceedings. For a complete list of publications, please refer to http://www.cs.hku.hk/~clwang/papers.html.
- The HKU Interactive Learning Grid project aims at building a flexible computing platform for processing students� programming assignments. The ultimate goals are: (1) to enable sharing of computing resources within HKU so as to minimize administration cost and increase utilization of available resources, and (2) to design and develop an interactive learning environment for quality teaching in HKU.
A ray-tracing
application on JESSICA2 using 64 nodes of the Gideon cluster, with speedup
of 40.75 (63.7% efficiency)
- It collaborates with the CSIS Department and the other local institutions in establishing the Hong Kong Grid Initiative, which aims at building a joint-university grid test bed in Hong Kong for promoting grid computing and facilitating the development of grid middleware/applications for the local industry and institutions.
- It provides the required computing resources for large scale experiments / benchmark tests in our research projects.
- It offers professional advice and assistance in designing HPC research prototypes.